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Too Much Praise Is No Good for Toddlers

By Jenny Anderson October 27, 2011 12:44 pmOctober 27, 2011 12:44 pm

When I was 8, my mom gave me a self-esteem bear. It told me I was great.

So I could relate to the recent New York Magazine article called “The Kids Are Actually Sort of Alright.” It’s a thoughtful millennials’ manifesto, written by one, which examines, among other things, existing in a chilly world after a childhood of warm and bountiful praise.

The writer, Noreen Malone, quotes Lael Goodman, 27, who says: “The worst thing is that I’ve always gotten self-worth from performance, especially good grades. But now that I can’t get a job, I feel worthless.”

This is precisely the problem with praise, or at least praise aimed at performance. It’s like crack for kids: Once they get, they need it, and they want more. And the real world doesn’t praise them for getting dressed in the morning.

Now, new research shows that too much praise for children as young as 1 to 3 can have negative repercussions down the road. (How did I spend my morning? Cheering on my 1-year old for the triangles she was putting into the triangle slots, and lauding my 3-year-old for clearing her plate.)

It was done by Carol Dweck, a Stanford researcher, who has been studying children’s coping and resilience mechanisms for 40 years. For the last 14 of them, she’s focused on what she suspects is the culprit behind less resilient children: Praise.

Her latest research is “Parent Praise,” and it’s a longitudinal study. In it, researchers observed, and coded, praise from parents with children 14 months old to 38 months old to see if it was more person-based (“you are really smart”) or process based (“you must have tried really hard”). When the kids were 7 and 8, they checked back to see how they felt about taking risks and whether qualities like intelligence were fixed or malleable.

The process kids won.

“The parents who gave more process-praise had children who believe their intelligence and social qualities could be developed and they were more eager for challenges,” Dr. Dweck told me.

In her previous research, she’s showed that praising children for their intelligence or abilities often undermines motivation and hurts performance. Kids who are told they are smart care more about performance goals and less about learning. Kids praised for their efforts believe that trying hard, not being smart, matters. These kids are “resilient” and take more risks.

Consider this study, which she did variations on for years. Researchers give two groups of fifth graders easy tests. Group one is told they got the questions right because they are smart. Group two is told they got the questions right because they tried hard. Then they give the kids take a harder test, one designed to be far above their ability. Turns out the “smart” kids don’t like the test and don’t want to do more. The “effort” kids think they need to try harder and welcome the chance to try again. The researchers give them a third test, another easy one. The “smart” kids struggle, and perform worse than they did on the first test (which was equally easy). The “effort” kids outperform their first test, and outperform their “smart” peers.

“If your whole goal is to look smart, you can’t enjoy something when you are not looking smart,” Dr. Dweck told me.

Here’s the scary part. In one variation of the study, the researchers tell the kids they’re going to give the same test at another school. They ask them to write a note to students in the other school telling them how they scored. Forty percent of the “smart” kids lie about their results, compared with 10 to 12 percent of the “effort” kids.

While I’d put my husband and me into the praise-prone category, we have friends who take a more measured approach. They want their kids do things for the intrinsic joy of doing them, not because they want approval.

So when their daughter gets herself dressed and looks for praise, her mom uses an encouraging tone but careful words. “You got yourself dressed!” When the girl finishes her dinner and looks for a gold star, her dad says, “Looks like you were hungry!” These people love their kids as much as I love mine. But they don’t congratulate them for showing up. Maybe they are onto something.

But then there’s Ms. Malone, the New York Magazine writer. She concludes that her generation is more resilient than people think. Their values are different from those of their parents. They are less materialistic and more creative. They like making ukuleles and meditating, and by her account, they’ll be just fine.

About

We're all living the family dynamic, as parents, as children, as siblings, uncles and aunts. At Motherlode, lead writer and editor KJ Dell’Antonia invites contributors and commenters to explore how our families affect our lives, and how the news affects our families—and all families. Join us to talk about education, child care, mealtime, sports, technology, the work-family balance and much more